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  #81  
Old Posted Sep 28, 2011, 3:47 PM
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The 3 lanes section is not great, the left and even right turns during rush hour are not great, the fact that one of the biggest malls in Halifax is right there is not great. I think a ton can be done just with policing and restricting turns at rush hour.
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  #82  
Old Posted Sep 28, 2011, 4:24 PM
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Pathetic cowardice stalls Bayers Road widening

From The Chronicle Herald.

I enjoyed this and have highlighted what I thought was one of the funnier lines.

The cowardly, inept, irresponsible refusal to govern continued Tuesday down at city hall.

For the umpteenth time in the past umpteenth number of months, the dithering ninnies who comprise Halifax regional council deferred making a decision on a regional road network plan.

Why? The excuse offered by some councillors swirled around the concept of awaiting a review of the regional development plan, which was passed five years ago.

Seriously? A review of the regional development plan? And just how long might that take? I’ll stick my neck out and say it will be probably take umpteen months . . . or umpteen years.

Central to the discussion of the road network plan — besides the obviously pathetic lack of political fortitude — is the utter cowardice of council members to deal with the proposed widening of Bayers Road. It’s been what, about 20 years or so, since the additional widening was proposed?

But of course there is an election next year. So the plan to refuse to deal with the road plan for a year simply means that this time next year, council will again refuse to look at it. They will say — as they have on so many other controversial issues over the years — that it should be left for the new council to deal with.

There are, after all, municipal elections in October 2012. Whew! That should provide at least one more year of breathing room. No decision will be needed for another while yet.

So there is another victory for the commuter gridlock that has drivers pulling their hair out, and businesses vacating the downtown as quickly as they can sign a business park lease and load the transport truck for a suburban destination.

Halifax is a so-called city. It has lots of little streets and a few big ones. On the peninsula, in particular, they are pretty much overburdened.

Still, it is OK to spend millions of millions of dollars on new interchanges, expressways and intersections in the burbs, but don’t you touch one shingle on a downtown roof in the name of better transportation. It’s a heritage shingle, after all. And a few more buses and better bike lanes are all the so-called city needs to sort out its transportation woes, right?

They call it a road network for a reason: One working roadway leads to another. New interchanges are A-OK for Highway 102 — the massive Larry Uteck exchange and the pending Washmill exit on the highway are the best examples. But the drivers who are being encouraged to use Highway 102 to get into the city find they come to a screeching halt when they hit Bayers Road.

At this time of year the congestion is so bad that vehicles are backed up to the Highway 103 merge lane from the South Shore that is supposed to feed even more vehicles onto the 102. Why? Because Bayers Road is a nightmare that successive councils have refused to deal with. It is a safety hazard, in addition to a juggernaut of failed transportation policies.

This is just wrong. The councillors may talk until they are blue in the face about wanting to revive the downtown, but these are meaningless, empty words if there is no workable road network to provide access to the downtown. Transportation staff have laid out the numbers and the options repeatedly over recent years, but council refuses to move.

Providing better transit is not the answer. It is part of a transportation strategy, but it won’t fix traffic volumes that are already here, thanks to Highway 102. And those traffic volume numbers are going to go up in the years ahead.

We wonder why the downtown is struggling? Heck, just try getting there some weekday morning in September. Question answered.

What this city needs is a government. One that is willing to govern, unlike the so-called government it has right now.
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  #83  
Old Posted Sep 28, 2011, 10:09 PM
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Marilla needs to tell us how she really feels.
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  #84  
Old Posted Sep 28, 2011, 11:37 PM
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Marilla has it bang on......in a few years there will be total gridlock and no one at the helm of HRM will no why or what to do about it!
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  #85  
Old Posted Sep 29, 2011, 12:39 AM
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Out of curiosity: is there a plan that goes beyond Bayers Road? I can see that the hope is to get more traffic onto Bayers, but is there a plan for getting it further south from there? Connaught (turning onto Quinpool), Windsor, and Robie all don't seem to have a lot of spare capacity. Are there plans to widen those after Bayers Road?
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  #86  
Old Posted Sep 29, 2011, 1:37 AM
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Originally Posted by ScovaNotian View Post
Out of curiosity: is there a plan that goes beyond Bayers Road? I can see that the hope is to get more traffic onto Bayers, but is there a plan for getting it further south from there? Connaught (turning onto Quinpool), Windsor, and Robie all don't seem to have a lot of spare capacity. Are there plans to widen those after Bayers Road?
The only thing that came to mind was the Quinpool master plan where street parking was to be reduced.
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  #87  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2011, 1:38 PM
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They don't need to widen Bayer's Road...They can do the same thing that they did to the MacDonald Bridge and Herring Cove Road. Reversible Lanes! Middle two lanes on Bayer's road can be reversible. AM:3in 1out PM: 1in 3out
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  #88  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2011, 4:14 PM
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It should be widened between Joseph Howe to Connaught for bus lanes and it have limited widened betwwen Connaught and Windsor for reversable lanes.
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  #89  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2011, 6:45 PM
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I don't know about six lanes to the highway and a six lane highway... you could widen Bayer's to 4 lanes from Connaught to Oxford by pushing the road about 2 feet to the south, without cutting down any trees, and then from Oxford to Windsor by pushing the street 2-3 feet north, into the base, without cutting down any trees.

I guess what I am saying is, how can that cost even $5 million, let alone $292 million? It seems like a reasonable and inexpensive step that might make the road safer and more efficient.

Good ROI, you know.
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  #90  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2011, 10:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bedfordite_93 View Post
They don't need to widen Bayer's Road...They can do the same thing that they did to the MacDonald Bridge and Herring Cove Road. Reversible Lanes! Middle two lanes on Bayer's road can be reversible. AM:3in 1out PM: 1in 3out
Make Bayers one lane in any direction and you create instant traffic jam, I don't care what time of day it is. It is THE main artery into the city. It needs to be widened.
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  #91  
Old Posted Oct 8, 2011, 7:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Waye Mason View Post
I don't know about six lanes to the highway and a six lane highway... you could widen Bayer's to 4 lanes from Connaught to Oxford by pushing the road about 2 feet to the south, without cutting down any trees, and then from Oxford to Windsor by pushing the street 2-3 feet north, into the base, without cutting down any trees.

I guess what I am saying is, how can that cost even $5 million, let alone $292 million? It seems like a reasonable and inexpensive step that might make the road safer and more efficient.

Good ROI, you know.
That's the best alternative I have heard. Why is this all about protest, when it should be about making the best change for people and transport.

Ugh, this whole "activism" thing just ignores that something DOES need to be done to Bayers road, so lets focus on the best strategy.

Traffic does go both ways btw, I don't think the reversing lane would be as effective as adjusting the lanes and widening a bit in certain sections and I think changes to the setup could have better aesthetic impacts.
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  #92  
Old Posted Oct 8, 2011, 11:51 PM
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Ugh, this whole "activism" thing just ignores that something DOES need to be done to Bayers road, so lets focus on the best strategy.
That's because of media like the Coast and the CBC, outfits like the Ecology Action Center, and elected pols like Watts and Kelly. None of them are interested in fixing the issue but would rather push an ideological agenda or, in the case of Kelly, pander for votes. This should have been fixed 25 years ago.
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  #93  
Old Posted Oct 11, 2011, 4:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Waye Mason View Post
I guess what I am saying is, how can that cost even $5 million, let alone $292 million?
Most numbers floating around in the media are essentially just made up. For example, the price quoted for the Nova Centre gradually "evolved" to include 25 years of estimated maintenance costs as if they were up-front capital costs. The Bayers Road widening is being conflated with a much larger plan to create a corridor extending all along the 102 that may very well never be implemented -- most long-term HRM plans die and the survivors rarely remain as originally envisioned.

I suspect this is why council rarely gets anywhere. Once a project is caught up in a "grand plan" its chance of success falls tremendously. Grand plans are seen as prudent and people like making them so they are what we get, even if they are basically always wrong. It would be better if the city just accepted that it is incapable of planning and followed a narrower strategy of pushing through small, iterative improvements that do not depend heavily on an overarching strategy.
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  #94  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2011, 7:47 PM
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Make Bayers one lane in any direction and you create instant traffic jam, I don't care what time of day it is. It is THE main artery into the city. It needs to be widened.
Then add one lane, so its 3 one way and two the other way. The third lane will be reversible, going in whichever direction traffic is going.
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  #95  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2011, 8:10 PM
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I'm just thinking and this point can probably be proven wrong within seconds. Is Bayers Rd. really the issue or is it what it is fed and feeds into? Let's look inbound. Coming off highway it's fairly straight forward until that stupid intersection(s) at HSC. Once there Connaught is really the only street that is capable of taking some of that volume. Problem is Quinpool backs up and then backs up Connaught. You can widen Bayers Rd. but it's not really going to allow more through fare if there is no where to go.

Secondly let's look at outbound. From Windsor St. and down to Connaught, Bayers Rd. is hit pretty hard at days end. Then you add both directions of Connaught feeding in. Down the line at Bayers and Joseph Howe is where I think a main issue is. That intersection becomes clogged and it spills people heading that direction far enough back that it clogs the 102 bound cars from being able to get to the on ramp. Again, you can add more lanes but I still think it's just more room to sit. I wish there was a way for a dedicated lane from at least Connaught outbound to the 102 on-ramp.
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  #96  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2011, 3:37 PM
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I don't know what they were thinking 60 years ago when they ended the 102 at bayer's road which in fact isn't even on the peninsula yet. They should have built the 102 to connect right through to barrington street and the mackay bridge. If you look at google maps, they could have done that before they built the Joe Howe Superstore. Then they should have built Harbour Drive, which would have been designated as part of Hwy 102 and take cars right into downtown.

Stupid Morse's Tea building...if they had gotten that down, they would have harbour drive right now.

I have always said this to anyone i'm talking to about the matter: Halifax NEVER plans ahead. The only thing they planned ahead with was wide enough overpasses on the 102 to add another lane in each direction.
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  #97  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2011, 4:10 PM
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You were in support of Harbour Drive? I wasn't born in those days but I sure am glad it wasn't completed. Halifax doesn't need a Gardiner Expressway.
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  #98  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2011, 4:29 PM
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Originally Posted by bedfordite_93 View Post
I don't know what they were thinking 60 years ago when they ended the 102 at bayer's road which in fact isn't even on the peninsula yet. They should have built the 102 to connect right through to barrington street and the mackay bridge. If you look at google maps, they could have done that before they built the Joe Howe Superstore. Then they should have built Harbour Drive, which would have been designated as part of Hwy 102 and take cars right into downtown.

Stupid Morse's Tea building...if they had gotten that down, they would have harbour drive right now.

I have always said this to anyone i'm talking to about the matter: Halifax NEVER plans ahead. The only thing they planned ahead with was wide enough overpasses on the 102 to add another lane in each direction.
Ugh, all I can say is: thank the gods for the Morse Tea Building.
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  #99  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2011, 4:30 PM
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You were in support of Harbour Drive? I wasn't born in those days but I sure am glad it wasn't completed. Halifax doesn't need a Gardiner Expressway.
Agreed. Give me a big old break. Most other cities that built cross town, harbour front highways are trying to get rid of them or bury them. Thank god this did not happen.
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  #100  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2011, 7:06 PM
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Yeah I've been to Albany, NY where they've built a waterfront highway in their downtown. Lets just say its not one of the better features of that city. Now they don't have the historic downtown Halifax does, but it made me realize what a disaster the harbour drive really would have been.
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